Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

I would encourage the hon. Lady to suggest to her constituent that she pursue the appeal route that each bank has to enable businesses to appeal against lending decisions. That is a very transparent process that would, one hopes, reach the outcome that her constituent wants. The hon. Lady could also encourage her constituent to approach business angels for investment. We announced in the Budget a review of venture capital trusts and enterprise investment scheme reliefs to encourage more investors to commit more money to small and medium-sized enterprises.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

9. What fiscal measures he is taking to encourage bequests to charities.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Justine Greening)]

At the Budget this year we announced the most radical and generous series of charity tax reforms for more than 20 years. The measures were not just about improving support for gift aid and payroll giving—we also introduced new measures to improve the inheritance tax system so that we can encourage more bequests.

[Tony Baldry]

What estimate has my hon. Friend made of the number of charities that will benefit from the raising of the gift aid limits, the simplification of gift aid administration and the introduction of the gift aid small donation scheme?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that we have taken a number of steps to improve the ability of gift aid to help charities. There are about 100,000 charities and community and amateur sports clubs currently registered for gift aid, all of which should be able to benefit in part or in entirety from these changes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

5. What fiscal measures he is taking to encourage charitable giving.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)]

The Government think that charitable giving needs a great deal more support than it has been getting, so we announced a major package of new tax breaks in the Budget, ranging from the biggest to the smallest donations. This includes the commitment that anyone giving more than 10% of their estate to charity will have their inheritance tax bill cut by 10%. For the first time ever, the first £5,000 of a donation or donations to a charity will automatically attract gift aid. That is automatic tax relief on the collection plate and the collecting tin on the high street. Overall, 100,000 charities could benefit to the tune of £600 million a year. These are the most generous tax changes for a generation.

[Tony Baldry]

Over the year, some £58 million in loose change is put in collection plates from just Church of England collections, so the small donation gift aid scheme will be very welcome, as it will enable tax to be recovered on that amount. Welcome, too, will be the reduction in inheritance tax for those who give more than 10% of their estate to charity. After all, we can take nothing with us, and it is probably better to leave as much as possible to charity when we go.

[Mr Osborne]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support. One challenge is to make sure that everyone hears about these schemes over the next couple of years. Because the Budget focused on big issues like fuel duty and the corporation tax cut, the same amount of attention was not given on Budget day to the charitable giving measures. Over the period before they come into effect, I want to make sure that all the charities are aware of the benefits. Every charity will be able to benefit, but small charities will be disproportionately better off.

Bank Bonuses

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The hon. Gentleman was, I believe, a Minister in the Labour Government. In the first year of this Government we are seeking lower bonuses than were paid in the last year of the Labour Government. Perhaps he will explain that to his constituents.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give the House an indication of the time scale within which he expects the banks—particularly those such as RBS, in which the taxpayer has a substantial shareholding—to make proposals on how they will increase responsible lending, on reasonable terms, to small and medium-sized businesses in my constituency and the constituencies of right hon. and hon. Members across the House?

[Mr Osborne]

The discussions are taking place now. In the next couple of weeks, I expect to be able to come back to the House with the conclusions of those discussions. The pay packages and bonuses for UK banks will be announced either right at the end of January or in early February; those for American banks will be slightly earlier.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

5. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the private finance initiative.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

13. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the private finance initiative.

[Joseph Johnson (Orpington) (Con)]

15. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the private finance initiative.

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Alexander]

I am not sure that it would be appropriate for me at this stage to pick out individual examples. The important thing to say is that, in common with the work that we are doing to ensure that we get better value from our suppliers across Government and that those suppliers are making a contribution to reducing the deficit, we are working on examining the future costs of PFI, so that where we can we reduce those costs. That is very important for ensuring that we reduce the deficit effectively and have the maximum amount of money left for front-line services.

[Tony Baldry]

A reduction of just 0.05% in contractors’ fees could save some £500 million a year. What can we do to help the Chief Secretary and the Chancellor bring pressure to bear on equity holders and key industry PFI players to persuade them to cut voluntarily their annual charges for rentals and services?

Comprehensive Spending Review

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady is opposed to more freedom for local government—[Interruption.] Well, that is what my increment financing proposal means. Along with our other decisions about grants, it means more freedom for local government. As I have said, this is a challenging settlement for local government. [Interruption.] Let me repeat that the Labour party created the budget deficit, and if the Labour party does not have a plan, it is in no position to criticise those who are trying to sort out this mess.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Do not an increase in the number of adult apprenticeships, commitment to the digital economy through the rolling out of universal super-fast broadband, investment in the green investment bank, protection for the science budget and the encouragement of green-collar jobs demonstrate the coalition Government’s belief, with every fibre of our being, that the only way forward for the country is a private sector-led recovery which will generate real wealth and real, new jobs for the 21st century?

[Mr Osborne]

Of course I agree with my hon. Friend. We made every effort to protect the science budget—that was one of the things that we strained to achieve—and if the efficiency proposals in the Wakeham report are implemented, that will lead to a real increase in scientific output. We have also been able to confirm the synchrotron project in Oxfordshire. Although Oxfordshire is extremely well-represented in the Cabinet, it is unfortunately not one of the counties that will benefit from a super-fast broadband pilot, but I hope that if the pilots are successful we will be able to roll them out in other rural parts of England, including the Banbury constituency.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman has talked to industry about its reaction to the Budget. I think that if he talked to the Institute of Directors, the CBI and the Federation of Small Businesses he would find that they welcome it, because they know it will help them to grow their businesses and grow employment. I only wish that the hon. Gentleman could recognise that and welcome it too.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

16. What recent progress he has made on reducing the cost to the public purse of his Department’s non-departmental public bodies.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Justine Greening)]

When I looked into whether the Treasury had any non-departmental public bodies, I found that we had just one, the Royal Mint Advisory Committee, which comes up to London three times a year to advise the Chancellor on coin designs. I then tried to find out how much it cost the taxpayer. The answer is nothing, because its charges have been taken over by the Royal Mint, which is an arm’s length Government company. I hope that that answers my hon. Friend’s question.

[Tony Baldry]

Across Government, how many quangos are there, how much taxpayers’ money are they wasting, and how will they be made democratically accountable?

[Justine Greening]

The answers to my hon. Friend’s questions are “Too many”, “Too much”, and “Through the spending review and over the course of the Parliament.”

Government Spending Cuts

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

As ever, the hon. Gentleman makes a serious and important point, and he is absolutely right that as we take tough decisions and come towards the spending review at the end of the year, we will have to try to maintain the services that we particularly value and that protect individuals in society who are on very low incomes. We need to protect investments that have the potential to pay off in the future, and I promise him that I will examine carefully the matters that he mentions. If he wants to meet to discuss them at some stage, I would welcome the opportunity.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Given the unambiguous admission of my right hon. Friend’s predecessor that the Labour party left the public finances without any money, will he place in the Library as soon as is convenient a straightforward statement that we can share with our constituents setting out clearly and unambiguously the exact nature and extent of the public finances that this Government have inherited? In that way, as we progress through this Parliament there can be no attempt by those on the Opposition Benches to rewrite history.

[Mr Laws]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, and there are two answers to his question. The first is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will make a Budget statement in this place on 22 June, when he will set out precisely the state of the public finances, and the second is that crucially, through the Office for Budget Responsibility, he will make assumptions about the public finances and growth that are objectively and independently informed. He will not do what previous Governments have been able to do, which is fiddle the growth figures for their own purposes.